Buying an E-mail List? Marketing Company Says Never Again

The 2-year-old company, Javelin Marketing, is located in Concord, California, and sells promotional material for independent financial planners, said Richards, who is the marketing director. Javelin, which has 15 employees, uses e-mail and other methods to contact potential customers. In the past, it had maintained its own carefully manicured e-mail database that was used in compliance with U.S. law. But maintaining an e-mail database is a lot of work. Richards received an e-mail from a company, Emailappenders, that sells e-mail addresses belonging to people in certain industries who have opted in to receive marketing pitches. Richards said he thought the list would be an easy way to reach a lot of people. Javelin had never bought an e-mail list before, but Richards said he had seen a lot of advice on blogs telling companies... [read full story]